On Australians getting 'rorted' by Adobe, Apple & Microsoft

Quite a lot of press Down Under regarding software pricing disparity between the US and Australian markets, mostly thanks to the Australian Federal Government summoning Apple, Adobe and Microsoft to appear before the House Committee On Infrastructure And Communications. Exactly how bad is it?

Australians unsurprisingly think they're being gouged when the cost of Adobe's Creative Suite 6 Master Collection is $2599 in the United States vs. $4334 in Australia. This headline, It is cheaper to fly to US than buy Adobe software in Australia says it all.

I imagine that most global software companies such as Adobe use some form of historic exchange rate average to set prices, rather than deal with the daily fluctuations in global currencies.

With that in mind, the Australian Dollar yearly average against the greenback since 1990 is 0.763163.

So, on average, it would cost $1310 Australian Dollars to buy $1000 US Dollars, or in the case of Adobe’s CS6 Master Collection $3405 AUD to buy the $2599 USD equivalent.

But CS6 Master clocks in at $4334 ...

So the question then is whether there are approximately $929 additional in-market costs Adobe has to bear in order to market and support this particular product?

Given that the Aussie dollar has exceeded parity with the greenback since 2011 (average 1.0383) Australian consumers have a case. But also given the cost of doing business in Australia, it's also unreasonable to expect pricing parity.